Some people find this hard to believe, but I am not a huge fan of Halloween. You might even remember me mentioning this last year (most likely more than once!) but I just can't help it. The decorations, costumes and everything else associated with this "holiday" give me the creepy crawlies. Regardless of my personal feelings, most of my students are in fact big fans of Halloween and therefore enjoy activities and songs related to it. You can browse some of those songs and activities I shared last year HERE. Well now that October is upon us, I thought it might be fun to have a little contest to get into the, um, Halloween spirit.
All you have to do: suggest a Halloween song topic! Easy enough, right? It could be scary, funny, silly, whatever. Just be creative, and make sure the topic is kid-friendly. The three people who submit my favorite topics will not only receive a free Custom CD, but their topic will be turned into a song and shared here at Listen & Learn in the coming month. The deadline is October 5 (a week from today) so start brewing up some ideas. Topics can be submitted via email or in the comments section of any post. Can't wait to see what you come up with!
You are not alone in disliking halloween (un-capitalized on purpose).
ReplyDeleteHi Rachel! I stumbled onto your blog and really enjoy it! I think a cute song topic would be the life of a pumpkin in the patch that gets to be a jack-o-lantern! My daughter's birthday is Halloween, so I didn't think much of it till she came along. Now I get excited because that's when my "punkin" came into the world!
ReplyDeleteWow. it's amazing posting. Tks for sharing these to us.
ReplyDeleteHi Emily! I am so glad you found my blog and like it :) Your song idea is very cute, and I can definitely see why Halloween is more fun now!!
ReplyDeleteHey Rachel! How about a song about carving a pumpkin and how it transforms into a jack-o-lantern? Or another good one might be safety while trick or treating on halloween night. Hope you are well!
ReplyDeleteHi - How about a song on where the tradition of Halloween came from? All Hallows Eve, etc....
ReplyDeleteOR...how about the history of the Jack O lanterns? (yes, this is from Wikianswers, because it was too much for me type...)
The Jack-o-lantern custom probably comes from Irish folklore. As the tale is told, a man named Jack, who was notorious as a drunkard and trickster, tricked Satan into climbing a tree. Jack then carved an image of a cross in the tree's trunk, trapping the devil up the tree. Jack made a deal with the devil that, if he would never tempt him again, he would promise to let him down the tree.
According to the folk tale, after Jack died, he was denied entrance to Heaven because of his evil ways, but he was also denied access to Hell because he had tricked the devil. Instead, the devil gave him a single ember to light his way through the frigid darkness. The ember was placed inside a hollowed-out turnip to keep it glowing longer.
The Irish used turnips as their "Jack's lanterns" originally. But when the immigrants came to America, they found that pumpkins were far more plentiful than turnips. So the Jack-O-Lantern in America was a hollowed-out pumpkin, lit with an ember.
Hey Rachel,
ReplyDeleteI just found your blog on Blog Of Note in Blogger and I love your blog now.
I have a couple suggestions:
First is a simple idea that can bring lots of cheer. Counting candy! As a kid that was one of my favorite activities on Halloween.
Second is a song about skipping with joy from house to house to trick-or-treat.
Last is a song about all the costumes to wear on Halloween.
Great suggestions, everyone! It is going to be really, really hard to choose only three winners. I want to write songs about each of these topics :)
ReplyDeleteLots of good ideas, but I have to concur with Rachel's feelings about the holiday. ;-)
ReplyDeleteOne of the schools where I work used to do a parade of costumes. I think it would be neat to let kids dress up (some teachers of younger students even have dress up centers in their rooms). Then have a song that mentions the costumes as they parade by. At the end of the song, it would be fun to have kids take off their costumes to remind everyone that kids are still kids under their costumes - no matter how scary or strange they are!
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